France coach Didier Deschamps not looking beyond semis against ‘historic’ Morocco

Doha: France coach Didier Deschamps refused to look beyond next week’s World Cup semifinal with Morocco when asked about his future.

Speaking to the press after France’s 2-1 win against England in a thrilling quarterfinal, the coach, whose contract is up at the end of the tournament said: “I will be manager for the semifinal and after that we will see. I don’t know everything in advance. We will tackle that later.”

He gave a lot of merit to his side’s win, which came thanks to a first half shot from Aurelien Tchouameni and a second half header from Olivier Giroud, while Harry Kane scored one penalty and then missed another that would have taken the game into extra time.

“England have a very, very good team. We put up a good fight. I regret we gave them a penalty and then gave them another penalty,” the coach was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

“Credit to my team, we showed some very good things and can still be dangerous. We also have great quality, impressive mental strength and great experience. It was always going to come down to small details and luckily tonight it went our way,” he commented.

The coach also spoke about the semifinal, which will be against Morocco, who stunned Portugal in Saturday’s other quarterfinal.

“Few people expected to see Morocco in the semifinal, they have surprised everyone and have deserved to be there. We very much respect our opponents and to get this far they have deserved it. No one can take that away from them,” he said.

“Morocco will be very, very difficult to beat. It is fantastic what they have achieved. They have played and beaten some of the best teams in the world. It is a historic achievement,” added Deschamps.